Sterling K. Brown, whose performance on NBC's "This Is Us" usually moves audiences to tears, was overcome with emotions when he learned that not only were his ancestors likely enslaved, but that he's a "recent African."
The actor made the discovery while appearing on an episode of PBS' "Finding Your Roots" that aired earlier this month.
"Birthplace of father: Africa," Brown, 43, said through tears, reading about his likely fifth great-grandparents on his mother's side. "Birthplace of mother: Africa ... Wow. Wow. That's ... cool. That's cool."
As Henry Louis Gates Jr. _ who hosts the series that traces the ancestral history of its celebrity guests _ told the "Waves" star, most black Americans are "descended from generations of Americanized Africans, or African Americans, but you weren't. It's like your ancestors came in that last big wave of slaves, before they dropped the curtain on the slave trade."
Earlier in the episode, Brown also learned that his third and fourth great-grandparents on his father's side were born prior to the Civil War.
"It just hit me," he said. "They were slaves.
"It means that Henry, Sarah, and Nancy were all likely born into slavery," Gates said of Brown's ancestors. "Have you given much thought to your ancestors who may have been slaves? ... Did you go there in your head, did you think about it?"
"Yes, I've thought about it. But I never thought I'd be able to trace it, to actually know it," Brown admitted. "This is amazing."
Brown added that, "being black in this country ... it's just like, you get so used to not knowing for so long, it's a joy to know. It's real. I'm real, is what it feels like."
